Smoothies

Since I started my weight loss journey, I also started with drinking smoothies as meal replacements.

First I drank them in the morning after my workout as breakfast but decided that I was still eating too much as I always had lunch the Spanish way... 2 or 3 course with coffee...

So I changed it to lunchtime and it works so much better!

How I make a proper filling smoothie? well like this..

I always make smoothies for 2 days which is 1 liter in total.

And you need the below ( courtesy of http://www.greenthickies.com/ ) :

• 2 cups of liquid * I use almond milk* 
• 2 cups of fruit
• 1/4 cup of dried fruit or 2 table spoons of liquid sweetener like honey or syrup.* I don´t use this , but this every bodies own taste*  
• 1/4 cup of nuts or seeds, or 2 table spoons of nut/seed butter. * I use chia and flax seed* 
• 1-2 cups of mild leafy greens * I use fresh Spinach leafs* 
• a filler which I explain below.

If you want the smoothie to be a meal replacement, you need a filler in it. Below is a list of the fillers you can use: 

• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup of quinoa
• 1/2 cup of seeds
• 1/3 cup of nuts
• 4 tablespoons of coconut cream
• 2/3 cup of coconut milk
• 1 medium avocado
• 3 medium bananas
• 1 cup of sweet potato 
• 1 cup of white potato 
• 4 cooked eggs
• 6 tablespoons of cream 
• 1 cup full fat cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup creamed cheese
• 1 cup of full fat yoghurt.

I almost always use half a cup of greek yoghurt and half a cup of oats as filler. 

For the oats and seeds, you need to soak them overnight so I make my smoothies the night before, so I only have to get them out of the fridge and bring with me to work.

One of my favorite recipes? well here we go..

• 2 cups of almond milk
• 2 apples, 1 pear and a banana
• 1/4 cup of a mix of chia and flax seeds
• 1 cup of Spinach leafs 
• 1/2 cup of oats 
• 1/2 cup of full fat yoghurt
• a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Mix it all in the blender and divide in half so you have 2 portions for 2 days and store in the fridge.

Enjoy!!

Simple Home made Tomato sauce

One of the things I changed is not eating processed food anymore.
This is quite challenging if you always relied on processed food in pots, freezer bags or whatever pre- made stuff..

One of the things I like to make myself now is tomato sauce. Before we used many pots a week of supermarket tomato sauce which turned out had tons and tons of sugar in them!

So here the recipe of my very simple and healthy tomato sauce which you need if you eat just as much of the stuff as we do in our household!


What you need;

• 10 to 15 ripe tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 onion
• table spoon of honey
• 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar
• a pinch of salt and some parsley
• 1 cup of water
• 1 big cooking pot 
• a blender ( optional) 
• empty pots to store the sauce in.

How to make;

1. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze them a bit when you throw them in the pot.
2. Dice the onion and garlic cloves and throw them also in the pot.
3. Add the honey, balsamic vinegar, salt, parsley and water and put it in the stove.
4. Put the Tomatoes on a low fire and let it boil till its reduced to a sauce, which can take anything from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
5. When its reduced enough , get the pot of the stove and let it cool down enough to throw it in the blender if you like the sauce smooth..
6. Pour the sauce in the empty pots and store in the fridge.

Et Voila! Fresh homemade tomato sauce which didnt cost you hours of standing in the kitchen and can easily be stored in the fridge for at least a week!

Enjoy and Stay Strong!

The Beginning.....

I started this new blog as I would like to share my weight loss journey in its full honesty!

About 2 and half months ago,  on the 2nd of February,  my husband and I stood on the scales and I got a right shock!
I knew for a while already that I needed to do something about my weight , but never had the motivation to actually start. When the scales showed me that I was going to severe obese, I couldnt ignore it anymore..

My husband and I decided that we would start exercising again before we go to work and start eating only healthy stuff. I took it a step further and said we will start clean eating because just eating more veg and less sugar is not enough for me.

So we started and I suddenly had so much motivation, if I was a total different person!
Every morning for the first 2/3 weeks I stood op at 6AM and did workouts which I got from YouTube.
They were mostly Jessica Smith workouts of 10 minutes , where I did 2 or 3 of them.
Then I started to change my diet significantly.. stopped eating any sugar, changed to honey in coffee and tea, drank at least 2 liters of water during the day and stopped eating carbs at night.

I noticed that I was changing a lot and not necessarily from the outside yet, but from the inside!
I felt I had more energy, was smiling more, had a better posture and felt more confident.

However after a couple of weeks I noticed that this routine was not enough and was still eating too much as I had a very filled smoothie in the morning , warm meal in the afternoon and then again in the evening. I then changed this to a yoghurt in the morning and the smoothie for lunch and a snack in between meals. I still do it like this and it works so much better!

From the moment I started and now I lost 9.3 kilo (20.46 pounds) , and I am feeling so good!!
Unfortunately I only started measuring when I was already a couple of weeks in my journey , but the centimeters changed significantly as well...

My husband is all into graphs and excel, so he made us a cool excel for our measurements per week..

As you notice my waist got suddenly up, as I was measuring above my belly button before ( Cheating and all haha) and then started to be honest and measure on my belly button...

All and all I am a much happier person now with a lot more confidence.
I started to wear make up and fit in some of my skirts and jeans again ( I was beside myself from happiness when I noticed I fit them again!) .

I hope you will follow me throughout the rest of my journey an I hope it motivates you to take the plunge of healthy eating and exercising!

Hasta Luego and Stay Strong!